Telangana Government Launches IT Policy, Announces A 1 Million Sq. Feet Incubation Centre

In what may prove to be a major boost to the Startup ecosystem of the country, the Telangana government has announced its intentions of developing a massive 1 million square feet of infrastructure space in collaboration with the private sector.

The same was announced as part of the state governments new IT policy — the Telangana IT Policy 2016 — which was recently unveiled by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao.

Under the policy, the developed infrastructure space will be dedicated completely to an incubator for entrepreneurial ventures for a period of five years — a period in which, it hopes to churn out almost 5000 startups.

The policy also has provisions for raising funds to the tone of almost $300 million ( almost 2000 crore rupees) to further stimulate startups and innovation. The money will be realized with the support of various international financial institutions.

The Government also launched four other policies in tandem with the IT policy to cater to specific issues, such as the Innovation policy to encourage startups and the Rural technology policy to encourage spread of IT to the smaller towns and villages of the state.

As per the IT policy document,

The government aims to build a booming startup ecosystem that will unleash the entrepreneurial spirit amongst the youth and in turn aid in job and wealth creation. It will also aim to achieve this by bringing the entire startup community under the state’s startup incubator T-Hub

The benefits of an increase in the number of active and innovative startups is hardly something that needs to be enumerated. Along with an increase in employment opportunities, it also leads to innovation and helps in an increasing progress of the nation as a whole.

India ofcourse, already has a vibrant startup culture. As per NASSCOM, the country has around 18,000 startups with a net worth of $75 billion, which are employing over 300,000 people! The only thing which was lacking was adequate government support and between PM Modi’s Startup India and the Telangana Government’s T-Hub, we have major steps taken towards correcting the issue.

Telangana is also one of the model Indian states in this regard. As per the CM, the government gave clearance to almost 1700 firms only last year.

The state also has Hyderabad as it’s capital. The city is well known as one of the top IT destination not merely in India, but across the world and hosts the offices of almost 1200 IT corporations, including the likes of Microsoft, Google, Deloitte, Facebook, Cognizant and Oracle.

The policy is another concrete step towards, what is being called as, turning the state into the silicon valley of India. Speaking at the launch event, CM Rao also promised a hassle-free and corruption-free environment for businesses in the state.

We assure you hassle-free, corruption-free clearances in the stipulated period. We gave approval to 1,691 units after launching the industrial policy last year and of them, 883 have been in various stages of production. We will do so for the IT sector as well, depending upon the merit of their applications

Interestingly, a map at the event comprising of LED bulbs that were made in Telangana, also attracted much attention, to the point of finding mention in the IT Ministers tweets.

Well, software and IT is definitely one of India’s major exports products. The sector was responsible for almost 11 percent of the total exports from the country, equating to almost $10 billion (68,232 crore rupees) in hard cash, in 2014-2015 and is showing no sign of stopping with a growth rate of almost 16 percent.

That said, the government’s move is certainly very commendable and we hope that other states take a leaf out of their younger sibling’s book.